Unai Emery hailed Ainsley Maitland-Niles as a role model for the rest of Arsenal’s rising young stars — before warning him not to take his foot off the gas.
The 21-year-old is enjoying his best run of form since breaking into the Gunners' first team and was excellent again in Italy on Thursday as they saw off Napoli 1-0, and 3-0 on aggregate, to book a Europa League semi-final against Valencia next month. Premier League
Emery expects Maitland-Niles to play his part on the run-in as Arsenal step up their pursuit of a top-four finish as well — beginning with Sunday's visit from Crystal Palace and their own academy prodigies Wilfried Zaha and Aaron Wan-Bissaka.
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The Spaniard said of Zaha and Wan-Bissaka: “They are two very good players, they are improving a lot and giving Palace big performances. We also have here young players coming from the academy, training with us, playing some matches with us.
“My responsibility is to work with them and give them the possibility to train with us and show the capacity to get into the first team with regularity in the future. But first, they have to realise that our level is a very high level and requires them to do a lot of work to show us they can get and hold down a position at Arsenal.
“This process was done by Ainsley, and it is continuing. I am asking him not to stop and do more.
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“After him, we have more young players like Reiss Nelson, who is on loan at Hoffenheim, Emile Smith Rowe, he is also on loan at Leipzig. Also we have here Eddie Nketiah and Joe Willock. We have players I want to work with, but I will be very demanding to get them to the high level to be with us.”
Many observers believe Arsenal have the easiest run-in of the Big Six, but Emery will underestimate none of their opponents – and certainly not Palace.
He added: “Respect to them. They have a big coach [Roy Hodgson] with big experience, they have big players and they have good performances away.
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"They won at Manchester City [in December], and that means further respect.
“Some players will rest [after the match in Naples] and we will do some rotation, but we are looking for the best players to beat Crystal Palace because we need 100 per cent in our performance.”
Arsenal’s away form had been a source of misery, but back-to-back away wins over Watford and Napoli have provided a lift with three of their five remaing league matches on the road.
Emery said: “They take confidence from the clean sheets.”
